U.S. Pat. No. 5,590,442 describes equipment for producing non-woven fabric, or fleece, made of fiber material. In this known fleece laying equipment, the cross lapper is a so-called flat cross lapper having an upper carriage and a laying carriage, each of which is provided with deflection rolls over which first and second endless transport belts conveying a non-woven fiber web are passed. These transport belts define a path length between the carriages. Within the path length, the fiber web is contacted on both sides by the transport belts. In the web path running to the upper carriage, the fiber web lies loosely on the first transport belt, and even at the roll supported at the upper carriage and deflecting said first transport belt the fiber web is not covered by any protection means. In the region between the upper carriage and the laying carriage, the fiber web passes two locations at which it is supported only on one side, namely, by the second transport belt.
In this known equipment, the web buffering device located upstream of the cross lapper is a separate unit which is able to buffer a variable length of fiber web, i.e., a variable volume, and to supply the cross lapper in a timely controlled manner with more or less fiber web, since during operation, the transport belts have varying running speeds caused by the laying movements of the moving carriages in the cross lapper. The fiber web buffering device comprises a mounting frame in which two deflection rolls are mounted separated from and in parallel to one another. An endless pressure belt is passed over both deflection rolls. The mounting frame is located in the running path section of the upper section of an endless feeding belt extending between a carding machine supplying the fiber web and the cross lapper, so that a U-shaped path deviation portion is formed in this path section. The length of this U-shaped path deviation portion is dependent how far the mounting frame penetrates into the otherwise straight running path of the feeding belt. To compensate the length of the feeding belt, a returning lower section of the feeding belt is passed by a carriage on which are mounted two deflection rolls. The carriage moves in opposite direction with respect to the movement of the mounting frame.
In the region of the transfer of the fiber web from the web buffering device to the cross lapper, there is a triangle-like gap between a deflection roll of the feeding belt running through the web buffering device and a deflection roll of the first transport belt of the cross lapper. This triangle-like gap must be passed by the fiber web on its path from the web buffering device to the cross lapper. The fiber web is not supported in this part of its path. Thus a drawing movement may distort a sensitive fiber web within this unsupported region. Following this region, the fiber web is lying loosely on the first transport belt of the cross lapper. Because of this, the web material may flutter on the transport belt when the conveying speed is high, also causing a reduction in web quality.